If You Could Only Take 3 Supplements For The Rest of Your Life..

“If you could only take 3 supplements for the rest of your life what would they be and why?”

It took me a while to figure out an answer because honestly, I have taken a lot of shit.

I have always been what some people call a “supplement whore.”

If I could get all the money that I’ve spent on supplements in the past 10 years back I could probably buy myself a BMW 1 Series.

It comes with the territory when you are into self-improvement. I am on a never-ending quest to find a pill, or anything really, that will give me a noticeable edge.

And it doesn’t help that I developed my obsession reading books and articles by Tim Ferris and Dave Asprey, who claims to at one point been taking over 50 pills a day.

Here’s a pic of the supplements I’ve got floating around my room at the moment. And this is just whats there at the moment!

I am obviously not taking all of these supplements at once, but I have tried every single one for weeks at a time.

So I can confidently say that I consider myself an authority on this subject.

Not by a matter of a Ph.D., but by pure experience.

So below I give my answer to this question, and I encourage you to hit the comment section and do the same.

1) Vitamin D

Its a fact that globally over 1 billion people are Vitamin D deficient.

With the rampant use of sunscreen and the rise in skin cancer, people are getting less and less sun every year.

Vitamin D is essential and was the obvious choice for the first supplement on my list.

Symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency include:

1) Bone and muscle weakness

2) Fatigue

3) Depression

4) Disrupted Sleep

5) Much more

Without vitamin D you just won’t function right.

When it comes down to it we are just organisms. And like plants, we need the sun to survive.

So if you’re not getting enough of it, supplementing with Vitamin D is a no-brainer.

So how much should you take?

To be honest, there is no cut and dry number for everyone as a whole.

If you want to be sure, go get your Vitamin D levels checked and take it from there.

But if that’s not an option, a good general guideline is to consume 1,000 IU’s of Vitamin D per 25 pounds of body weight.

This is a guideline set by the Vitamin D Council. I don’t know why there’s a whole council for Vitamin D but there is.

So for a 200 lb male, this means 8,000 IU’s a day, in the form of D3. This will prevent deficiency.

But if you are deficient I suggest you take 10,000 IU a day for several months. It will take a while to reverse your deficiency and can take up to 6 months to start seeing symptom resolution.

Don’t overdo it.

Too much vitamin D is not great for you, so do not go above 10,000 IU daily. This is the amount that your body will produce with maximum sun exposure.

So if you know you are gonna get high levels of sun that day there is really no need to take D in pill form at all.

When should you take it?

Vitamin D needs to be taken in the morning.

Taken at night it has been found to have a negative effect on your sleep. While in the morning it is found to improve your sleep by increasing REM sleep.

So best to take it in the morning

2) Magnesium

Here’s another chronic widespread deficiency. 68% of the world is not getting the proper daily doses of magnesium.

Many experts agree that our magnesium levels should be twice the amount that they typically are.

Magnesium is essential for a calm and smoothly running nervous system. It made my list because when I started to supplement with magnesium within weeks I noticed a strong reduction is a stress and anxiety, less muscle cramping and stiffness, and a much better quality of sleep.

There’s a lot of supplements out there that work, but not many gave me such an immediate positive effect.

Regardless of what I think, magnesium is responsible for over 300 biological actions in our body is has often been known to be the “master mineral.”

Avoid magnesium oxide, which is sold at most generic health care pharmacies, as it is poorly absorbed and irritating to the digestive tract.

Instead, opt for Magnesium Citrate.

Magnesium Chelate & Glycinate are also okay, but I have no experience with them. I have always stuck with Magnesium Citrate and if it’s not broke, then don’t fix it.

3) Omega 3 Fish Oil

Whats the most important part of you when it comes to self-improvement.

Your brain.

Everything starts in the brain and one of the best things you can do for your brain is to take omega 3 daily.

Benefits of supplementing with omega 3 include:

1) As stated above, Incredible brain benefits.

These include but are not limited to relieving depression, helping with anxiety, and increasing concentration and memory.

Omega 3 insulated the nerve cells in the brain allowing them to communicate better with one another. After all the brain is 60% fat, so in order to optimally perform you need to feed it what it needs.

2) Improved skin health

3) Improved bone and joint health.

4) Improved cholesterol.

Even though omega 3 is a fat it helps to lower triglycerides and raise HDL (good cholesterol).

5) Improved heart health.

Omega 3 helps reduce plaque build up in the arteries. This increases blood flow to your heart and vital organs, even to your brain. Another brain benefit.

6) Much more.

So how much should I take?

Well to be honest in my opinion, the more the better. The recommended dose by doctors is around 1000mg a day.

This is a good starting point, but to receive the maximum brain benefits I take around 5,000mg a day. Many people take even more.

In the past, sufferer’s of traumatic brain injuries, some in a coma, have been given as much as 20 grams a day. This high dosing of fish oil has actually helped brain healing and patients in a coma from brain injury wake up.

So I have a high belief in fish oil and really think it’s up to you on how much you take. If you just want it to be safe, help your heart, brain, and overall health then take 1000mg.

But if your suffering from depression or anxiety experiments with higher levels. Don’t go as high as 20 or even 10mg without a doctors recommendation but see what works for you.

So can I just take a 1000mg pill and be good then?

Sadly no.

1000mg of fish oil does not mean the same thing as 1000mg of Omega 3’s.

Many fish oil supplements on the market are not as effective as you need them to be. They may say that they are 1000mg but the truth is the part of the pill that you need(EHA & DPA) are not even close to 1000mg. The pill may only contain 30% omega 3 while the rest is just regular fish fat.

A better explanation is in the pic below from the sellers of Omegavia.

So when your buying Omega 3 make sure you look for a product with a high content of EPA and DHA. It should be at least 750mg of EPA and DHA per pill (actual Omega 3).

The source I use and have no affiliation with is from prosource.net. It contains 750mg of Omega 3 per 1200mg. That means just 2 pills a day is enough to give you 1500mg of Omega 3 a day.

It is also from an extremely pure source of fish, and I just trust the company.

Buy Prosource Omega 1250 here.

In conclusion

There are hundreds of supplements out there that I could have chosen, and many of them work.

But these 3 supplements, along with a healthy diet, can be an incredible help to your health and if I could only take 3 supplements for the rest of my life I would choose these.

So I pose the question to you:

If you could only take 3 supplements for the rest of your life what would they be?

– And no multivitamins (Cheater)

Let us know below and subscribe for my official supplement routine (free) in a lot more detail when it arrives.

Sean is a true entrepreneur. After turning his life around after struggling with anxiety and chronic fatigue syndrome he now dedicates his life to being his best self and helping others do the same. Learn more about him and his projects at SeanRussell.me

9 COMMENTS

For anyone reading this, I want to suggest Not taking an vitamin D supplement if you are not vitamin D deficient. You can get your appropriate amount of vitamin D with sun exposure and from your diet (oily fish, eggs, meats).

[…] replace food. A lot of products will just burn a hole in your wallet anyway with the exception of these three supplements. Morale of the story – find a few supplements that your body actually needs and add them to your […]

Great article Sean !Your article made Me think about the list of “Ultimate 3 Supplements that I would take”……after all these years of trying out anything and everything…..So here is My List of 3 Ultimate Supplements that I would always take :

1. Zinc – Revs Up My anabolism, helps Me pack on Muscle, keeps the estrogen low, Cuts the Cortisol and helps a lot in the Bedroom too. I consider it to be the single Most Important dietary Mineral that Men need, and believe Me, it can literally change Your Life…..

2. Cod Liver Oil – I couple Zinc with Cod Liver Oil. As you mentioned above, Fish Oil is extremely important. I’ve tried Krill oil and Cod Liver Oil, and have found out that Cod Liver Oil + Zinc Revvs Up the Anabolism like Nobody’s Business !

3. Vitamin B Complex -Finally, this is very very important. You would be surprised to know how effective Vitamin B Complex is in increasing the Testosterone Levels in Men….. Something like Niacin or Thiamin can literally take your life from Negative to Positive, and that too, in the shortest time possible…..

I mainly started taking it for good skin, and I think it has helped in the past. I think it also keeps me “regular”.

It’s hard for me to gauge the direct effects of the probiotic, but I can you that my skin is decent, I’m regular, I feel pretty good on a daily basis, and I get sick ZERO times a year, so I think it’s good.